difficult conversation

,,,,,do we need to argue,,,,,love,,,,,,//,,,best shot of today,,,,congrts,,n

I will leave this for others to discuss.
For me, it is an illustration to, what in French is called, a photo-roman.

When I first looked at this I thought it was a collage -- the coloring and the style of the faces are so out of joint; it's so laboriously contrived. To my eye, the faces look robotic, plastic.

On the other hand, the thing that this kind of reminds me of is a puppet show, where the heads are huge and "act," bobbing and bouncing, as if their limp/absent body wasn't something to worry about. The obvious contrivance of the hands inside the puppets is knowingly ignored.

I believe it is important to consider this image in context when offering an evaluation. As with all of the images in Etien's "Collage" collection, this one is heavily manipulated, to the point where is crosses over from essential photography into the realm of illustration. This is consistent and appropriate, and our comments should take this into account. I, then, view this much more like I would a hand-painted illustration than I do as photo. The source media is clearly photographic in origin, but the level of manipulation has taken it out of the realm of photography and made it something else. Not that this something else cannot be successful, but it is no longer really a photograph.

That having been said, it is evocative of a very intimate moment, but one occurring in bizarre circumstances. The backstory invoked by the scene outside the windows is at odds with the intimacy found in the back seat of the automobile, creating a level of high tension. I find myself waiting for passersby to begin peering in the windows. Given the collage motif of this collection, one must suspect that the two lovers were photographed in another venue and then placed in this composite scene, an impression strengthened when one realizes the male would be laying in the rear seat footwell if this had been photographed in an automobile. This suspicion is further confirmed by the radical differences between interior and exterior lighting. The painterly treatment mitigates this effect somewhat, but it becomes ever more obvious on closer examination. All in all, the more I consider this image the less I find to like. For me, it becomes artificial and contrived, and loses its initial appeal, despite the high degree of skill and effort evident in its execution and development.

I will first comment on the color palette and the tones, which I like very much. I wish the warm light from the cigarette lighter had a bigger role to play in setting the mood. From my POV, the focal point of the image is the mismatch of facial representation between the man and the woman. While the man's face looks natural, the woman's is highly distorted (her eyes like a geisha doll), as in a crudely conceived video game character ... a man (being deeply engrossed in video games) dreaming about making love to his favorite video game character? Please note, I am ignoring completely the image caption which changes the interpretation (dreams are too abstract for difficult conversation with a video game character). The notion life in an inanimate character triggers our innate fear associated with such scenarios. In my mind, the feeling of a dream is even more fortified because the artist deliberately left the part of the bedding next to the characters against a car backdrop in an apparent effort to highlight the absurdity of the situation.
On a second look, I can imagine this to be a B movie poster, barring the fact that the artistic quality of the woman's face is probably inferior to a movie poster. In summary, the artist has depicted a dream scenario effectively using elements of pop art and illustrative graphics. I will refrain from saying whether I like or dislike the image, just my impression stands.

This reminds me of one of those hand painted giant billboards I used to see across the Texas border in Mexico for an up and coming Telenovela circa 1970's only the actors look too modern.

Not sure what is being depicted fits a difficult conversation unless the woman is telling the guy she's pregnant. Can't tell if they're in a car or small trailer with pillows and sheets. There's not a lot being communicated where it just seems it was shot as practice study to explore a painterly style as a homage to romantic paperback novel covers.

I'm confused about what it wants to be.

This is like a page taken from a graphic comic book style romance novel. with more images than words. In a story line context it might work. As a stand apart photo its the processing that speaks out, the content is not so relevant. I don't feel the drama its supposed to imply, I don't find the woman figure alluring, which does not help draw me into the story.

There are certain technical features in an photograph that make it not possible to evaluate , with or without context David. If the main subject is way darker than the background and not a silhouette, then it is hard to read it or is it a single frame from a video. What went before and what is coming after is impossible to know. Why is the woman so mysteriously dark and the man so bland and expression to hold us off reading the situation. But the mystery is not enveloping or interesting enough to say more than that, so I had best shut up. A kind of image that calls for more imagination than I can muster today, but I am ready to listen. Yes, the conversation is difficult indeed as the title says.

I like Marie's comment and I agree with it. I think the main protagonists are just too dark to make this picture work. I assume they are underexposed and the boosting of the shadows required for them to be visible at all resulted in the curious, graphic novel look. Perhaps they could not be lightened further as the dynamic range was insufficient. Not sure why the man would be lying on what look like pillows in the back of a small (classic?) car. It does indeed look like part of a story about which we can only guess.

One plus for Etien, or at least one that I think supports the picture's title, is the lighter.

Never mind that the inside of a car would never be that dark in the middle of the day ... but the one time one might want to have a lighter when lying underneath of someone ...

... would be if one wanted a closer look at the expression on the face of someone who is ... lying on top of one due to what is being said. Or can you think of another reason for the lighter?

He wants a smoke, but has just dropped his ciggy?